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Mirage #08 [1966-Summer]

Publication date: 1966

Topics: Fanzine, Science Fiction, Horror, Supernatural, Mirage, Jack L. Chalker, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Fryer

Collection: pulp_misc_horror; pulpmagazinearchive; additional_collections

Language: English

Mirage (subtitled "The Amateur Magazine Of Fantasy") was a mimeographed fanzine which was edited and published by Baltimore fan (and later SF author) Jack Chalker. It was primarily devoted to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and his circle and featured fantasy-oriented material: articles, short stories, bibliographies. The first issue was titled Centaur (1960) and the second was Kaleidoscope (1960). The title of the final eight issues (1961-1971) became Mirage. In 1963, it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. Chalker's later Mirage Press was named after it.

This Summer 1966 issue includes: "Clark Ashton Smith: A Chronology" by Donald Fryer (aka Donald Sidney-Fryer); "Avon Fantasy Reader: A Checklist" by George F. Ralston; "Some Backgrounds Of Fairyland" by H. P. Lovecraft; reviews of books by Seabury Quinn and Robert E. Howard; a poem by Gerald W. Page; and letters from H. L. Gold and E. Hoffmann Price. The gruesome cover artwork by David Prosser features a hapless vampire hunter being attacked by a vampire skeleton rising out of a coffin in a crypt.

CONTENTS:
Mirage #08 [1966-Summer].

Over The Edge: The Viet-Nam Syndrome ••••••••••••••• 2
The White Whale's Race ••••• Ray Trevino ••••••••••••••• 6
Clark Ashton Smith: A Chronology ••••• Donald Fryer ••• 13
Sea Nymph •••••••••••••••• Laurence R. Griffin ••••••••• 25
Avon Fantasy Reader: A Checklist ••••• George F. Ralston •• 29
Some Backgrounds Of Fairyland •••••• H. P. Lovecraft•••••••••••••••• 34
Books: Quinn, REH, & An lndex•••••••••••••••••••••••• 42
Hindsight! •••••••••• Fryer, Gold, & Price •••••• 44
Poems by Gerald W. Page, George F. Ralston, and H.S. Weatherby 11, 12, 28, 39, 40-41.
A NOTE TO ALL READERS, p. 41.

About Mirage from Jack Chalker's "A Short History Of Baltimore Fandom":

"Mirage evolved out of my earlier fanzine, Centaur. My second issue was called Kaleidoscope 2, but it had no title on the cover, as I had announced a contest for a permanent title. K2 couldn't have been more different from Centaur; this time August Derleth was the big influence, and the fanzine was very Lovecraftian in content. K2 was printed by Don Studebaker, and took some time to get out since I actually had to pay for supplies this time. I was very surprised by the positive reaction to it; I picked Mirage as the 'winner' for its permanent name (which had been suggested by a Sears & Roebuck salesman and would-be horror writer from Knoxville, Tennessee, named Gene Tipton) and decided to go with the 'serious and constructive' path that K2 had taken rather than the 'same-old same-old' of Centaur. The cover was drawn by David Prosser, a classical music disk jockey and part-time portrait painter from Ohio whose portraits of great opera stars are in major opera houses across the country. In fact, Prosser did the cover for every issue of Mirage and also designed the distinctive logo for Mirage (which I still use with my Mirage Press publications).

There were eight issues, in all, with the Mirage title. Because it had no competition, it attracted a contributor's list that in retrospect is quite impressive: I published nonfiction by deCamp, Leiber, and others, the first stories of Ed Bryant and Ray Nelson, the last stories of Seabury Quinn and David H. Keller, M.D., poetry by Tim Powers... well, you get the idea. Mirage eventually gained a large enough following and popularity that it was nominated for the Best Fanzine Hugo in 1963. The last five issues were collated at BSFS meetings, the times when the meetings were at my house.. By the end of the run, circulation had reached one thousand copies, so collation was no trivial matter. Actually, everyone who attended had to collate the zines, because otherwise there was no room to sit down and have a business meeting!"